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Determination of the translational temperature of the high altitude terrestrial thermosphere from the rotational distribution of the 5.3 µm emission from NO(v=1)
Author(s) -
Sharma R. D.,
Duff J. W.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/97gl02458
Subject(s) - thermosphere , rotational temperature , distribution function , atomic physics , maxwell–boltzmann distribution , boltzmann constant , physics , excited state , boltzmann distribution , altitude (triangle) , airglow , radiative transfer , computational physics , ionosphere , atmospheric sciences , plasma , nuclear physics , thermodynamics , optics , spectral line , geometry , mathematics , astronomy
The rotational distribution of vibrationally excited nitric oxide produced by impacts with atomic oxygen is investigated using a quasiclassical trajectory approach. The present study confirms the earlier result that the nascent rotational distribution may be described by a Maxwell‐Boltzmann (MB) distribution. It further shows that the temperature describing the nascent distribution is about 25% lower than the translational temperature and equals it after 3 to 5 collisions. Translational temperature as function of altitude is derived from the nighttime rotational distribution of the 5.3 µm emission observed by c ryogenic i nfra r ed r ad i ance for s huttle (CIRRIS 1A) and compared with the mass spectrometer incoherent scatter (MSIS) model temperature. Because of the strong 5.3 µm emission this method has larger signal than the N + O radiative recombination currently used to determine the nighttime thermospheric temperatures.